Conventionally, thick plastic cards, such as gift cards, prepaid telephone cards, discount cards, transaction cards, and the like, are manufactured using methods having a series of steps. These steps ordinarily include initially printing text and graphics on a card, laying magnetic tape on the card, separating the card from its substrate, encoding the magnetic tape with information, and finally printing variable information on the card, such as a secret personal identification number (PIN), as well as covering the PIN with a scratch-off foil material.
To accomplish these steps, typically flat sheets of card stock are processed though multiple separate machines. Such flat sheets can only be made into a relatively small number of cards per sheet (ordinarily between 25 and 50) and must be moved by a human operator between separate machines throughout the printing process.
Some cards require the application of variable information to the card. Typically, variable information is added to the cards after the cards are separated from sheet stock material. As such, once the cards from an individual sheet or group of sheets are separated and collected, the cards are taken to a processing station for applying variable information to the cards. One processing station may encode variable information to a portion of the individual cards. Another processing station may apply variable printing to the individual cards. The cards may then be sent to a labeling/foiling station to produce a finished product which may be shingled onto a conveyor to be collected and packaged in an orderly fashion.
All of these steps, multiple separate machines, and human interventions make processing thick plastic card stock currently very time consuming and expensive. However, because customers prefer relatively thick plastic cards as a source of value (as opposed to paper cards or very thin plastic cards), the multi-step, multi-machine, and human intervention manufacturing process is widely used today. As the demand for relatively thick cards increases, there is a need for a substantially continuous process for producing personalized cards on card stock material having a thickness of at least about 12 mils.
In view of the foregoing need, one aspect of the disclosed embodiments provides a method for producing personalized cards on a substantially continuous basis. The method includes providing multiple supply rolls of card stock having a thickness of at least about 12 mils to an in-line printing system. The card stock is corona treated in an in-line corona treating unit to provide a printable surface having a surface tension energy of at least about 38 dynes/cm. Fixed data is printed on individual card units of the card stock in a first printing unit of the in-line printing system. Variable data is printed on the card units of the cards stock in a second printing unit of the in-line printing system. Optionally, a removable activation label is applied by an in-line label application unit to the variable data printed on the card units. The card units are die cut in an in-line die-cutting unit to a predetermined size. The first and second printing units are shaft driven printing units and the card units are capable of being produced at a rate of at least 50,000 card units per hour.
An advantage of the process described herein is that multiple processing steps, normally requiring remotely separate processing units may be combined in in-line processing units to provide relatively thick personalized cards. The personalized cards may be produced at rates that cannot be achieved by separate processing units providing the same processing steps.
Before any embodiment of the invention is explained in detail, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are not limited in their application to the details of construction and arrangements of components set forth in the following description, or illustrated in the drawings. The disclosed process is capable of alternative embodiments and of being practiced or being carried out in various ways. For example, paper stock could be used in place of plastic stock with the apparatus as described herein. Also, it is to be understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of illustrative description and should not be regarded as limiting.